Patent Document 1 discloses a vacuum cleaning apparatus including a vapor chamber that generates vapor of a hydrocarbon-based cleaning agent, a cleaning chamber that cleans a workpiece under a reduced pressure with the vapor of the hydrocarbon-based cleaning agent supplied from the vapor chamber, and a drying chamber that is connected to the cleaning chamber through an opening-and-closing valve and is maintained in a pressure-reduced state and a low-temperature state, and after the cleaning of the workpiece in the cleaning chamber is finished, the vacuum cleaning apparatus makes the cleaning chamber and the drying chamber communicate with each other by bringing the opening-and-closing valve a valve-opened state, and thereby dries the workpiece.
That is, in the vacuum cleaning apparatus, the drying chamber maintained in a pressure-reduced state communicates with the cleaning chamber being in a higher-pressure state due to supply of vapor during cleaning than the drying chamber, the pressure inside the cleaning chamber is rapidly reduced, thereby a cleaning liquid (a cleaning agent) adhering to the workpiece instantaneously vaporizes, and vapor moves from the cleaning chamber into the drying chamber and condenses thereat, whereby the drying of the workpiece is performed. Patent Document 2 also discloses a vacuum cleaning apparatus including a drying chamber (a condensing chamber) similar to that of Patent Document 1.
Patent Documents 3 to 6 disclose cleaning apparatuses and cleaning methods by which a workpiece is cleaned with a cleaning liquid.